06-2-Woodley ICICTE 2013 Proceedings 2013   225   THE INTERNET IS FOREVER: YOUTHFUL INDISCRETIONS AND ILL-CONCEIVED PRANKS REVEAL THE NEED FOR EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES IN ACADEMIA Carolyn Woodley Victoria University Australia Michel Silvestri Centre for Clinical Education Karolinska Institutet Sweden Abstract Students' imprudent social media use threatens employability and undermines emerging professional identities. Professional bodies have developed social media guidelines as a part of professional codes of conduct. Most professions acknowledge that benefits of social media must be balanced against its potential to negatively affect workers’ professional lives and the public trust in some professions. This paper considers examples of students’ social media use from healthcare and other tertiary programmes in Australia and Sweden. The discussion concludes that universities must confront social media challenges as part of the educational experience for the development of a responsible and professional ethical digital citizenry. Background Social media was barely on the radar of most businesses and enterprises five years ago. Today, however, social media ranks in the top five risks for business (Griffin, 2012) especially regarding brand and reputation. Business, educators and students have lauded the benefits of social media. While universities have been described as “increasing hubs of digital activity; much commendable, some reprehensible” (Wankel & Wankel, 2012, p. 1), the pitfalls of social media do not attract sufficient discussion nor does the topic of social media and professional risk attract considered attention in the university curriculum. Social media “is a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0…that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2011, p. 61). Social media is characterized by the creation and distribution of content through web-based social networks with high levels of interactivity to create, comment on and disseminate online content. Social media includes text, image and multimedia forms presented in a variety of formats such as blogs, microblogs, image sharing sites and social networking sites. A common feature of social media is the capacity of sites to disseminate user-generated content, often of a personal nature, via web- based or mobile applications (Davis, Deil-Amen, Rios-Aguilar & González Canché, 2012, p.1). Introduction Students in universities around the world are associated with on-campus traditions of raucous behaviour from drinking and partying to possibly libelous student publications. Social media allows campus-based behaviour – from puerile pranks to more serious misdemeanors – to ICICTE 2013 Proceedings 2013   226   reach an audience well beyond campus boundaries and to become very public, reasonably permanent and searchable over a person’s lifetime. This paper examines the extent to which student social media behaviour has the potential to negatively impact on the professions they are hoping to enter. Might student online behaviour create reputational risk for professions? While much discussion around risk of social media focuses on what people post about others and possible breaches of confidentiality, privacy or common decency, this discussion primarily considers the impacts of students’ own social media behaviour on professions and the societal bodies associated with them. The consideration has been spurred by instances of students of recognizable disciplines behaving badly online in ways that explicitly link them, even as novices, to particular professions. So what are the professional problems that social media can exacerbate? Social media has seen ‘mass personal publishing’ (BITS, 2011) with the potential to reach millions of readers in a very short time. The potential of social media to have negative effects on the lives of individuals has been fairly well documented – often via the medium of social media. For years, there has been regular reporting of people who have been variously sacked, harassed, shamed or notoriously catapulted to fame because of behaviour that has been captured, discussed or disseminated via social media. Universities seem to be grappling not only with how to use social media for teaching, learning, marketing and communicating while minimizing risk, but they are also grappling with the extent to which they can influence student off-campus behaviour when it surfaces online. Boundaries of public/private, on-/off- campus and personal/professional are increasingly blurred by what is often called the changing norms of the blogosphere. Studies that have contributed to exploring “acceptable and unacceptable behavior online” (Hooper & Kalidas, 2012, p. 265) indicate that young people might have a clear idea of what is unacceptable behaviour online but are not as clear as what is acceptable. Professional and Legal Context The potential for user-generated content to breach legal, ethical and social codes has lead to professional bodies around the world creating guidelines, codes and recommendations on the use of social media for their members. Some commentators have observed the changing norms of behaviour online with Spar (2001) likening cyberspace to the Wild West: “not a lot of rules or marshals in town” (Spar as cited in Wankel & Wankel, 2012, p.1). While the realm of social media seems unregulated, this is simply not true: the same laws apply online as they do in real life. Different laws do apply in different jurisdictions, and Stewart (2013) has countless examples of the same law being differently applied in the same country due to differing interpretations. But the consequences of online transgressions are certainly real for the people, who have been fined, fired, rendered unemployable or professionally discredited. It is important to stress that, while technology seems to be ahead of the law in respect of social media, technological newness “does not compel new laws, but it does mean existing laws need to be applied” (Short, 2012). Just as is the case with legislation, professional codes of ethics apply to any medium - including social media. However, many groups have perceived an urgent need to explicitly and specifically address the issue of ethics and codes of professional practice online. While it is true that social media behaviour is covered by legislation and guidelines and policies already in place in most institutions, there is a real need to explicitly link new forms of social media and existing polices and guidelines (Lenartz as cited in Wankel & Wankel, 2012). Most universities have Student Charters, Codes of Conduct, Information Technology Policies or specific Social Media Policies that cover social media use. Policies alone, however, are not sufficient. ICICTE 2013 Proceedings 2013   227   Many reports, guidelines and policies stress that public perception of professions could be negatively or positively affected by social media, and that relationships between particular professionals and members of the public could be negatively or positively affected by social media. Many professions stress the need for all professionals to understand “the ethical and professional implications of online social networking” (International Bar Association, 2012, p.10). The Swedish Society of Medicine’s Advice to Doctors in the Use of Social Media (2012) has specific and general advice: all posts on the Internet should be considered public; there is no anonymity on the Internet; and, once posted, information is always there. Both the Australian and British Medical Associations have developed social media guidelines that explicitly cover medical students and target junior doctors. In the legal profession, the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) (2012) has published Guidelines on the Ethical Use of Social Media. The guidelines do not have the force of law, and lawyers must comply with the Professional Conduct and Practice Rules 2005 and the Legal Profession Act 2004. The guidelines, then, serve as a reminder that “the informal nature of…social media” (LIV, 2012) exacerbates the potential for lawyers to bring the law into disrepute. Social media’s potential to bring professions into disrepute is something that health professions have been quick to mitigate with social media advice. The Nursing and Midwifery Board (2010), the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority (2012), the Royal College of Nursing (2011) and the Chiropractic Board of Australia (2012) all provide guidance about social media. Sweden’s internet connectivity is the envy of many nations: “Sweden has the top ranking in the UN ICT development index as well as the World Economic Forum’s Network Readiness Index” (Swedish Institute, 2012). An estimated “97 per cent of people aged 12 - 44 use the internet on a regular basis” (Swedish Institute, 2012). Online, Swedes are protected by strong privacy legislation. The European Union Directive 95/46/EG (EU, 1995) concerning personal data and the right to privacy is implemented at a national level. Sweden’s Data Inspection Board is clear that, under the Personal Data Act 1998, businesses and government agencies are seen as “data controllers” and are legally responsible for data on their official social media sites (Zeldin, 2010). Two examples from Sweden show that, despite tough legislation protecting people’s privacy, social media seems to disinhibit users. In one case, a nurse was disciplined for posting photographs of a surgical procedure on Facebook (AP, 2008). More recently, the city of Gothenburg was in the news when an anonymous Instagram account posted 200 photographs of girls and boys aged 13 - 14 including their names and alleged sexual activity. A riot ensued. Cyberspace and the real world collided. Defamation, privacy and confidentiality are covered by law and so, legally, people are limited about what they can say about others. Or, as in the cases above, people might be punished if they transgress existing laws. In addition to people having information, images or opinions posted about them by others, there is the different and increasing problem of “people... exposing personal information about themselves” (Solove, 2007, p. 2) with little sense of the risks involved. There is general agreement that people have a right to represent themselves. In the past this has been balanced by accepted ideas of privacy and a sense that individuals are allowed to act in ways that do not require public disclosure or accountability (Etzioni as cited in Solve, 2007, p. 71). Traditional ideas of privacy are challenged by new norms of information sharing. The word oversharing has entered our vocabulary and, naturally, the topic of oversharing has its own Twitter hash tag: #oversharing. Oversharing at University and the Role of Universities The behaviour of students online has attracted much attention from schools and universities, governments and potential employers. Students’ online behaviours are diverse and range ICICTE 2013 Proceedings 2013   228   from positive projects including social activism and peer support (Woodley & Meredith, 2012), other “academically purposeful activities” (Davis et al., 2012, p. 9), knowledge exchange and building cultural capital (Ryan, Magro, & Sharp, 2011) to less worthy uses of online technologies such as software piracy and other copyright-infringing activity (Liang, 2007), selling and buying essays (Coughlan, 2008), discovering ways to cheat plagiarism software (Fearn, 2011) and bullying (Solove, 2007). Beyond the most basic peril associated with social media usage by students – that of simply being in front of a computer for lengthy periods with associations of time-wasting, anti-social behaviour or simply being distracted from study (Junco, 2011), far more serious but rarely addressed concerns about student behaviour online include privacy, oversharing and changing norms of behaviour (Solove, 2007): “Students are certainly aware that the information they post is ‘public’; however, all may not recognize the full extent and possible consequence of this display” (Davis et al., 2012, p. 18). Rudman and Steenkamp’s research (2012) documents examples of inappropriate disclosure of information by students. They note that respondents to their survey were aware of the risks of inappropriate behaviour online but only “implemented safeguards in a haphazard manner” (p. 400) to mitigate those risks. Social Media and the Work Place Web 2.0 applications have “created particular hazards for public views of particular professions” (Greysen, Kind, & Chretien, 2010, p. 1227). Teachers, lawyers and medical professionals have been featured in a number of high profile cases that have seen people fired, fined and otherwise sanctioned for unprofessional online behaviour. In Australia, some workplaces have sought to ban staff using social media during work time or commenting on their place of employment. Attempts to stifle social media usage reveal anxiety about social media’s potential negative impact on business. Abusive, sexist and racist comments about co-workers are the main problems at work but planking1 (ABC, 2011), inappropriate photos that breach patient confidentiality (Associated Press, 2008) or even just too much information about one’s ‘private’ life have featured in cases where social media and industrial relations collide. These cases show both a remarkable lack of awareness of the risks of social media or stunning lapses of judgement. Such cases show why Facebook, with the expressed mission of making the world more open and connected has been likened to “a stupidity X-ray” (McKinney, 2011). Social Media and the Professions Globally, professions are policing the behaviour of individuals who are deemed to bring the profession into disrepute through social media. Breaches of patient or client confidentiality and breaches of privacy provide concrete examples of professionals breaking professional codes or even laws. But there are also more nebulous online behaviours that, multiplied, amplified and decontextualised by various peregrinations through the internet, could have damaging consequences – not for the individual who can be seen as somehow misguided, foolish and an aberration within their profession – but for the whole profession. Some professions have urged their members to consider their personal reputations before posting anything online in a professional take on the ‘Think Before You Post’ campaigns that have operated in North America, Australia and England as part of a broader cybersmart agenda. However, professional bodies are concerned to expand that concern for an individual’s reputation to examine how hundreds of posts linked to particular professionals might reflect on the entire profession: ICICTE 2013 Proceedings 2013   229   Thus, the concept of ‘think globally, act locally’ applies to [professional] behavior online in the same way it applies to human behavior in relation to the environment; each individual [professional] should develop a greater consciousness of the potential impact of their online actions for the entire profession. (Greysen et al., 2010, p. 1227) Professions seem particularly concerned by a blurring of public and professional lives that is amplified by social media and especially aggravated by the architecture of social media platforms which collapse separate social groups that, in real life, might never interact (Solove, 2007). Users need to understand that social media has a multi-audience nature but that most platforms operate in a way that “serves all audiences together” (Hooper & Kalidas, 2012, p. 266). Even if users understand that different audiences require different behaviours, the architecture conflates activity to one audience. The blurring of personal and professional identities in social media creates hazards for professionals and students. Many universities are working through these unprecedented challenges. The professions, too, are working out how to use social media to share their knowledge, advocate for their clients or patients and better inform the public about the services, programs and information available. For example, a recent social media campaign in the UK was designed to educate the public about the appropriate use of the Emergency Department of Hospitals. General comments from participants who worked in hospitals were fine but some tweets were “hazardous” in that they described “Patients with chest pains and internal bleeding...real emergencies” (McCartney, 2013). Some tweets ridiculed patients for panicking and misusing the Emergency Department. Given the public nature of the tweets from identifiable hospitals, patients could conceivably identify themselves. Professionals have always discussed clients or patients with other professionals – seeking collegial advice and using colleagues as a sounding board. When such conversations happen online, it is simply not possible to ensure confidentiality (Chretien, Farnan, Greysen & Kind, 2011). In the US, the American Medical Association (AMA) suggests that doctors should separate professional and personal content online and “recognize that actions online and content posted may negatively affect their reputations among patients and colleagues, may have consequences for their medical careers (particularly for physicians-in-training and medical students), and can undermine public trust in the medical profession” (AMA, 2011, p. 6). A blog post in Australia on Nurse Uncut (managed by New South Wales Nurses and Midwives Association) shows the tension between the advocacy potential of social media and its capacity to threaten public trust in the nursing profession. Consider the themes of the blog post “A Disability Nurse Speaks Out.” Might these comments create uncertainty in the public about the levels of care they receive?   Disability nurses are... often stressed…We are so short staffed we rely on casual nurses to take up the vacancies…We have huge potential for medication errors due to the number of medications disability clients require. I know most of the hundreds of clients in this centre… The MO [Medical Officer] was asking me about their conditions, but because I hadn’t worked with these clients for several months, I had to find an AiN [Assistant in Nursing] who had. There are no other RNs [Registered Nurses] on unit. There was no EEN [Endorsed Enrolled Nurse] on unit. We were lucky today; a regular AiN was on duty to supply the information (New South Wales Nursing & Midwifery Association, 2012). ICICTE 2013 Proceedings 2013   230   This blog highlights an issue of professionalism: professionals must be able to critique their profession with a view to improving it, but might some online behaviours threaten the public’s faith and trust in the profession? Methodology The case studies under review provide three examples of tertiary students using social media – a personal blog, YouTube and Facebook. They are cases that the authors have experienced first-hand and that galvanized the need for more explicit policies in the authors’ respective educational settings. That examples of similarly problematic behaviour could be found in different discipline areas, in different institutions and in different countries not only gestures to the global nature of some challenges created by social media but also highlights that educational institutions and legislation need to focus on teaching students the principles of professional behaviour irrespective of technology or the geographic location. The blog, YouTube and Facebook examples show how student use of social media could involve reputational risk for students, the university and the professions for which students are studying. The cases studies are examined for offensive content that links students to discipline areas, professional practice, actual workplaces and particular universities. The cases are considered within the legal contexts of Sweden and Australia in relation to freedom of speech, privacy and harassment. The first two examples demonstrate how blogs and videos may be used by students in ways that could offend the public and possibly cause a negative impact on the public trust in health care and health professionals. The third case is a more generic example of social media use that shows how publicly visible student- administered Facebook sites might adversely impact the reputations of individual students and a university. While the sites of the case studies are currently active, the URLS have not been provided because, although students may be oblivious to or uncaring of the reputational risks their behaviours pose to their own long-term employability, their respective institutions and their professions, the authors are not. Case Study One: A Nursing Student’s Blog A nursing student has a personal blog in which she describes her daily life. Her studies at a named institution are sometimes described starting from 2009. The blog site, which was created and published on a platform hosted by a daily journal in Sweden, is still online (March 2013). Many of the student’s blog posts contain aspects of her nursing courses and include text and photos of classes that were probably taken with a mobile phone. Several blog posts touch upon an occasion where the student performed independent exercises in the Clinical Training Centre (CTC) of the University Hospital. Due to the number of students, the nature of the exercises and the expected levels of students’ skills, lecturer supervision was infrequent. The student’s blog site shows activity from the CTC that includes her and fellow students during training. One blog post captures aspects of training in intimate patient hygiene. While these exercises were performed on mannequins or anatomical models, the student in question has published photographs that focus on anatomy in a way that clearly intends to sexualize and/or ridicule the situation. These activities were undertaken in 2009. Comments have been posted below the blog. Many blog posts are quite innocent and may even be seen as pedagogical or informative but a couple of blog posts have a somewhat erotic character with inappropriate language commenting on the photos of students handling artificial genitalia. A comment to one of the blog posts, signed by “clinical supervisor,” recommends the removal of offensive blog posts, adding that this behaviour is not appropriate for a nurse and that respect for patients must be shown in clinical exercises as in hospital. The posts have clearly not been removed. ICICTE 2013 Proceedings 2013   231   Case Study Two: Student Doctors on YouTube A number of students in a Medical Doctors Programme in Sweden produced a film in the hospital where they were training. The film seems almost professionally produced and was uploaded to YouTube in 2011. Due to reactions from the hospital and the programme’s management, the film was removed from YouTube for a short period but is now available. The filmmakers apologise for the time the video was unavailable and express the hope that the film will now be available forever. Judging from comments, the video seems to be popular with some viewers who are possibly peers. The film is in some respects a darkly comic response to rumors of bullying amongst medical students. As new trainee doctors arrive at the hospital, old hands greet them by beating them up, stealing their things and treating them with contempt. A training montage follows – and we see the student doctors hardening up, getting fit and punching lockers in a rigorous and funny training regime. Even so, the film contains hyper violent scenes within the hospital environment. Authentic hospital logos are seen on uniforms and actual name badges from the hospital are used. When the trainee doctors exact revenge, it is particularly violent – guns, knives and even a police steel expandable baton feature in attacks that are shocking despite the amateur status of the filmmakers. More worrying is that some scenes may be seen as promoting racism. Case Study Three: Students Stalking on Facebook Most Australian universities are associated with unofficial Facebook sites that follow the “stalker space” model. Stalker space Facebook sites appropriate university logos but are not official university Facebook sites. These spaces differ considerably depending on the administrator of the site and the university’s approach to social media. The “stalker space” associated with one Australian university currently looks tame enough with posts about events, warnings of parking inspectors and occasional personal comments about people hogging photocopiers, bad teaching or someone’s lack of staircase etiquette. It has over 5,000 Likes and one recent post welcomes two new named administrators who have “taken up the sceptres of spam-banishment and the crowns of crowd control” (ANU Stalkerspace, 2011). This site takes moderation seriously. While most student-led Facebook sites seem to be judiciously administered, when they are not, the results are extremely negative for students and institutions. One “stalker space” Facebook site, while covering the usual memes, events, selling books and volunteering opportunities, also regularly sees a small core of anti-social behaviour from a handful of students that could be regarded as libelous, menacing, discriminatory or even criminal. Both students and staff have been described and named in offensive ways. In one exchange, a student in the library was threatened online with physical violence and another student volunteered to film the threatened attack. In another exchange, a male student described in detail what he would like to do to a female student. When another male student offered the opinion that these postings were offensive and constituted a crime under Victoria’s Crimes Act 1958, several other students then threatened him for interfering. The main offender in this exchange is a student who has a Facebook site with no privacy settings in use, names himself as a student of the university and names his areas of discipline expertise. His language is aggressive and offensive. His comments about females are sexual, anatomical and sexist. Suggestions from other students that he modify his behaviour are met with further aggression. Discussion In all three cases, students are clearly linked to identifiable educational institutions. Student names are sometimes clearly evident. The identities of educational institutions are reinforced by identifiable images, dialogue and text. All cases provide examples of online behaviour that raises legal and ethical issues in relation to other students by photographing them (in the ICICTE 2013 Proceedings 2013   232   blog), threatening them (in the video) and offensively depicting or threatening them (on Facebook). The language of many of the Facebook posts would generally be considered offensive. The photograph of the nursing student on her blog – with pierced tongue extended, hands and long blue nails posed in a ‘devil’s salute’ – is fine for a personal blog but the juxtaposition of this image alongside images of clinical learning renders it unprofessional. So might this user-generated content damage the public perception of tertiary students, of particular institutions or even affect the public’s trust in the professions? None of the blog posts in the case of the blogging nursing student shows any patients. Nonetheless, a basic principle of teaching in the health professions is that clinical training is regarded as a fully clinical environment with the same rules as hospital wards as it serves to develop a sense of professionalism in students. The recent case of a Swedish nurse (AP, 2008) who was disciplined for taking photographs during surgery renders the idea of personal blogs from a health professional’s work place foolhardy. Such behaviour is likely to diminish trust between patients and health professionals. Patients must have trust in a professional, confidential service that does not judge them, sexualize them or ridicule them (McCartney, 2013). Blogs from or about the workplace risk both professionalism and confidentiality. The case of the YouTube video involves a group of students whose ideas of what is culturally and professionally appropriate are clearly at odds with hospital management, some hospital employees and perhaps the wider public. Some employees reacted forcefully to the footage, urging the hospital management to have it removed from the Internet. Is this example just a matter of different tastes in humour or are there more serious issues at stake? Certainly, in Australia, students would need management approval before filming in a hospital, they might be charged with trademark infringements for their use of hospital name badges, and they could possibly be disciplined under a Student Charter that requires students to “Respect all University staff, property and facilities” and treat “other students with respect” (Victoria University, 2011, p. 4). However, such a draconian response to the video might be heavy- handed. Appealing to students’ self-interest, their long-term employability might be more effective along with an appeal to their emerging sense of professionalism. In Australia, stalker spaces have arisen in the shadow of official university online presences. The term stalker space itself has its origins in the MySpace platform and makes reference to online spaces that contain confidential information and photos of nudity or compromising behaviour. Contemporary university stalker spaces are typically Facebook groups, run by named, identifiable students. The extent to which a university can control activity on a stalk space is interesting: an aggressive attempt at control would create a social media backlash but ignoring some behaviour might amount to negligence. Australian universities stalker space Facebook sites have been depicted as sinister; note one site’s motto: ''Stalk, prey, love'' (Buchanan, 2011). It is clear that universities have a duty of care to both its students and staff that may not even be aware that they are being named, defamed or threatened in this space. Bad behaviour online is sometimes explained by environmental features of cyberspace; in particular, the assumed anonymity that participants feel can give rise to a sense that there are “no consequences or accountability” (Ritter as cited in Wankel & Wankel, 2012, p. 29) for online comments. However, in our case studies, anonymity is not a feature: that is, students are in the public domain and they are identifiable by their name, photo/image as well as other identifying information such as their course and institution. The stalker space example supports Ritter’s (2012) observations about real world gendered behaviours: “Men are more ICICTE 2013 Proceedings 2013   233   likely to act in an aggressive, argumentative, and power-oriented manner online” (p. 28). Bravado and hypersexuality evident in the Facebook posts show the extent to which the university has done nothing to protect women or promote anti-discriminatory culture. Left unmanaged, such a site “sets the stage of the creation of an environment that allows and encourages prejudice, discrimination, and harassment” (Ritter, 2012, p. 29). Could such behaviour persist in students’ professional lives? Will it lessen their chances of becoming professionals?   Rightly or wrongly, recruiters are increasingly using social media to vet applicants: as “a quasi-public forum in which what you say attaches very strongly to your identity” (Madrigal, 2011), it is reasonable to consider social media sites as part of the recruitment process. Students need to take their current digital selves seriously for the sake of their future careers: they need to know that as well as companies scrutinising applicants' social media presence in a general check-up on the Internet during the recruitment process, some employers also demand social media passwords at interview. Conclusion: Digital Citizens Regular examples of employees being fired due to social media activity have not deterred some students who remain oblivious or uncaring as to the personal and professional dangers of exhibitionist, offensive or even illegal online behaviour. Educational institutions need to adopt a combination of approaches to address the changing norms of the blogosphere and guide students to act in ways that are professional, collegial and respectful. While universities may be congratulating themselves on their various forays into social media, concerns about “cyberbullying, personal branding, unplugging and balancing the personal with the professional” (Ramspott, 2013) suggest that digital identity development must become central to the university curriculum. It is not sufficient to mention privacy settings during orientation activities or to react when inappropriate behaviour comes to light. Nor is it sufficient to offer electives in digital citizenry or extra-curricular sessions on ‘personal branding’ to enhance employability. Where possible, curriculum in areas such as law, medicine, nursing and teaching should use professional codes of conduct and social media guidelines as the basis for teaching and fostering digital identity development. Universities in the UK seem to be offering resources, professional development sessions and advice to students about managing their online reputations. The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) says that “teaching methods [must] evolve and adapt to provide students with the skills of digital and social media” (Gill, 2012) that are specific to their intended professions. While UCLan’s course "Brand You" assists with identity management online, universities have a broader responsibility to ensure that students have the skills to succeed in the digital world. Responsible digital citizenry needs more than extra-curricular programmes or electives. It requires structured integration into the curriculum: “Institutions should be teaching students about the importance of context in online communications, the fluidity of privacy, awareness of nuance, and the power of community-building through social media” (Stoller, 2012). Solove (2007) and others (Australian University Cyber bullying Research Alliance (AUCRA), 2010) have noted that offensive, criminal and dangerous online behaviour requires legal, technological and educative solutions. Business organizations, professional bodies (International Bar Association (IBA), 2012) and universities need students and would-be professionals to undertake training to ensure that they understand the legal and policy context in which they operate, what is and what is not appropriate behaviour online as well as basic cyber safety strategies. Social media highlights the need for a different set of knowledge and skills in the employability debate. Students need to understand ICICTE 2013 Proceedings 2013   234   the legal context of the online environment; courses must embed Web 2.0 media literacy skills. University courses need to take more responsibility in facilitating citizen 2.0 competencies (Alam & McLoughlin, 2010) but universities need to develop these competencies within an explicit legal and policy context. As various commentators have noted, the new norms of the blogosphere are currently being negotiated. During the transition, students need guidance. Note 1. The fad of planking – lying flat like a plank of wood, taking photographs and videos of oneself in unlikely or dangerous locations and then uploading those images online – has led to one death in Australia and sackings and investigations of people planking in the workplace. In the UK, seven doctors and nurses were suspended for planking on duty. They posed on resuscitation trolleys, a ward floor and a helipad and created health and safety risks, infection control risks and violated codes of conduct (Savill, 2009). The Facebook page, The Secret Swindon Emergency Department Group, was not so secret. References Alam, S. L., & McLoughlin, C. (2010). Using digital tools to connect learners. In C. H. Steel, M. J. Keppell, P. Gerbic, & S. Housego (Eds.). Curriculum, technology & transformation for an unknown future. Proceedings of ascilite 2010. Sydney, Australia. Retrieved from http://ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney10/procs/Alam-full.pdf American Medical Association (AMA). (2008). Council on Ethical & Judicial Affairs. Opinion 9.124 - Professionalism in the use of social media. Code of Medical Ethics, 2012-2013. Chicago: Author. Retrieved from www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician- resources/medical-ethics/code-medical-ethics/opinion9124.page ANU Stalkerspace. (2011). ANU Stalkerspace. 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Woodley, C., & Meredith, C. (2012). Supporting student transition through social media. American Journal of Distance Education. 26(2), 86-95. Zeldin, W. (2010). Sweden: Data Inspection Board Statement on social media sites. Retrieved from www.loc.gov/lawweb/servlet/lloc_news?disp3_l205402129_text Author Details Carolyn Woodley Carolyn.Woodley@vu.edu.au Michel Silvestri Michel.Silvestri@ki.se